Film Round-Up #33

I might have grown up watching Sean Connery and Roger Moore save the world as Bond, and I was even around when Timothy Dalton gave it his best shot, but Pierce Brosnan was the first actor I can remember actually getting the part. He was cast in the mid-80s before Dalton but when he became unavailable Dalton was cast in his place. Many were keen to see the Irishman take on the role though, and his chance came when Dalton declined his third Bond film. Would he be worth the wait? And just as importantly, would his outings as the famous character be any good?

GoldenEye (1995)

Our first look at Brosnan Bond was a memorable one, featuring the famous Soviet chemical weapons facility escape followed by a huge dam bungee jump, and indeed, those pesky Russkies are the bad guys here, specifically the Janus crime syndicate who are aiming to take control of the 'GoldenEye' space-based weapon. These oafs are chiefly represented here by Ourumov (Gottfried John), a rogue Soviet general, Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen), a scary assassin who orgasms from killing people, Boris (Alan Cumming), a skilled programmer/hacker, and of course (spoiler!) Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean), a former 00-agent who was presumed dead. It is the latter, with the help of his goons, who intends to use the GoldenEye's fancy electromagnetic pulse to devastate London and cause global financial meltdown.

Bond's pursuit of them sees visits to Monte Carlo, Siberia, Saint Petersburg, and Cuba, as well as a first meeting with ex-KGB agent Zukovsky (Robbie Coltrane), and he also eventually teams up with Natalya (Izabella Scorupco), another programmer and former colleague of Boris. It's a pretty action-packed debut for Brosnan in any case, with standout scenes including the theft of a prototype helicopter, the attack on a Soviet radar facility in Severnaya, and of course the final showdown in the Cuban jungle and the secret satellite dish hidden there (actually the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico). Brosnan quickly looks the part too, whether using his charm to make women's clothes fall off or leaping through explosions firing submachine guns, and we also had a new M in the form of the excellent Judi Dench. Perhaps the best debut until a certain Mr. Craig arrived... 8/10

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

Despite the excellent start though, this follow-up is often forgotten for some reason. I suppose it has a somewhat unorthodox bad guy in Jonathan Pryce's nutjob media mogul, Elliot Carver, who plans to manipulate global powers into starting World War III in order to secure broadcast rights in China, making him the most powerful 'mogul' in history. It's actually a premise that's as relevant as ever in our media-saturated, fake-news-filled world, and it isn't that hard for Carver to set the UK on a collision course with China, although I guess it helps to have a fancy stealth boat, a magical gadget or two, and your own mini-army at hand too. It takes more than that to pull the wool over Bond's eyes but he only has 48 hours to find out what's going on. He still finds time to shag Carver's wife (Teri Hatcher), obviously.

Events kick off at an arms bazaar near Russia and Bond also takes in Hamburg where he 'pumps' Paris (Hatcher) for info and messes with Carver's plans. He later pops up in Okinawa and Saigon where he and Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh), a lively Chinese government agent, team up to investigate the chaos caused by Carver's sneakyness including a recently sunken Royal Navy frigate at the bottom of the South China Sea. For a Bond film, it's all unusually plausible, perhaps even more so today than the time it was made, and accordingly it has aged well. Pryce's Carver, presumably a jab at Rupert Murdoch and his empire, is just the right side of believable, Brosnan is good once again, and Yeoh is a standout too. Together they bring us some fantastic action sequences (the motorbike escape in Saigon being my personal fave) and, all thing combined, this an underrated entry in the Bond series if you ask me... 7/10

The World is Not Enough (1999)

Perhaps better known as the one with Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist (chortle!), this was I think the first Bond film I had on DVD for a while, so I've seen it quite a few times. This wouldn't be necessary to remember the first couple of scenes though, which are excellent. First in Switzerland, Bond attempts to retrieve a case of money for oil tycoon, Sir Robert King, before making a dramatic escape. Then back in London, said money blows up half of MI6's HQ prompting Bond to chase after the assumed perp in a special Q-developed speedboat in the Thames, before ending up falling from a hot air balloon onto the Millennium Dome. Whew, it's exciting just writing it! All this tomfoolery is soon linked to Renard (Robert Carlyle), an ex-KGB agent seeking revenge on the King family whose daughter Elektra (Sophie Marceau) had previously been Renard's hostage. Bond is assigned to protect her which sends him to Azerbaijan where she is overseeing the construction of a new King pipeline.

From here, after a quick catch up with Zukovsky, he heads over to Kazakhstan to look for Renard who is planning to trigger a meltdown on a nuclear sub near Istanbul, destroying a rival oil pipeline along with most of the city itself. This is where he meets the ridiculously-named Dr. Christmas Jones (Denise Richards) who reluctantly helps him save the day. It's pretty by-the-numbers as far as the plot goes but Brosnan is pretty good again. Marceau does a decent job too, and Carlyle makes a pretty convincing vengeful psycho in most of his scenes, but Richards? Oh deary me. It's not a sexist thing - I'm sure there are plenty of accomplished female nuclear physicists - but Richards really isn't remotely convincing here I'm afraid. She was, let's face it, cast because she's really hot, but she doesn't bring much to the film other than that. It's also a notable film for Desmond Llewelyn's last appearance as Q, and for John Cleese's introduction as his replacement. The biggest reasons to watch this film though, are the first 20 minutes-or-so and some of the other action scenes which are excellent, including a Bond on skis vs paragliders scene! ... 6/10

Die Another Day (2002)

Despite the disappointments of the last film, Bond's first appearance of the 21st century must've been a moment to behold, surely? For some reason I didn't even watch it before this feature, although a friend of mine who is a huge Bond fan has always slated it which may be at least part of the reason. It starts off pretty well at least, with Bond attempting to infiltrate a North Korean military base. Despite causing some various mayhems, however, he is caught and, usually for this franchise, is not able to escape. In fact, he is held and tortured for fourteen months. After all that, he gets home to find his status as a 00-agent has been revoked as he's suspected of leaking information to the North Koreans! Being Bond, he ignores this and is able to escape from MI6 custody, heading immediately after Zao (Rick Yune), a terrorist he was trying to blow up in North Korea. This takes him to Cuba where he meets Jinx (Halle Berry), an NSA agent who is also after Zao.

Bond's investigation leads him back to London and to British billionaire businessman Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens) who invites him to his latest scientific unveiling in Iceland, and it's here things start getting ridiculous. Graves has, you see, an ice palace. Yes, it's literally a palace made of ice. Not to be outdone of course, Bond has an invisible Aston Martin Vanquish (or 'Vanish' as Q calls it - har har!), allowing him to sneak around unseen (it presumably also masks the noise of the Aston's V12!). Hmm, anyway, Graves is of course up to no good and plans to use his new invention to blow up South Korea (or something) but after a strong start with great potential, this one gets way too over the top, even for a Bond film. Some of the action scenes are great but they also seem non-stop at some points, and some of them are tainted by poor CGI too. Not even Halle Berry in a bikini can save this final Brosnan effort. An unfit swansong for a good Bond let down by progressively weaker films... 5/10

Next stop: the Timothy Dalton years which consisted of a mere two films :)